It has been awhile since I posted and told you all about my friends purchase of a house filled with "collectibles" and "junk"!
I have been busy since that post what with a few dogs coming to stay while their human owners were away and going to that house that used to smell so terrible! Now the house is almost able to be in for more than a few moments. We have had the grass mowed, and 1/2 of the driveway emptied of rotting trash which the old fellow believed to be collectible stuff and actually since it got wet and was molding it has been dealt with as a new collection in a huge container. So far three of those extra huge containers have been filled and taken away only to be replace with empty ones which the men are now working on filling.
Inside the house the kitchen has been dismantled, cupboards emptied, and table set up out on the front lawn with a huge "FREE" sign, and many more items set up on tables on the front porch for sale. Items go bit by trickled bit from the porch sale, and the free items while some disappear, more and more gets loaded onto the table tops...
I have spent over 100 hours on the internet researching items which we believe to have value and have put them up for sale in a new Etsy Shop we named BYGONERA and each day we come across more and more.
The research is really necessary because there are things of value and if you ask a price for something valuable, it should it at all possible have a provenance attached or an age verified added with it. Many pieces this previous owner believed to have value had none at all, and, many of the paintings need to be authenticated too. Then there are the most wonderful of old picture frames attached to some paintings which really simply cannot be thrown into a junk heap, they deserve their purpose to be nicely displayed in a new home where the craftmanship can be appreciated all over again.
This piece is from a pottery manufacturer which is now no longer in operation!
Yet the pieces available on the open market place are few and far between....it's vibrancy still rings true and not a mark on it, no scratches, nicks or breaks. Such a beautiful piece.
Yesterday we found this magnificent Brown Glass Wine bottle from 1934 - what a rare find indeed...it actually has its own provenance and I am hoping some glass collector will snap it up soon.
Then too this lovely collectible handbag,
And this piece of trench art -
Now at least there are more than just pathways to walk through and eventually given a few more months we may even have the house emptied.
Yesterday while I was there people just came waling into the house uninvited, how spooky is that? Everyone wants to see inside - scary, you walk into a room and there standing is another human form - one woman actually walked out of the upstairs bedroom and here while I thought I was the only one upstairs she walks out and scared the bejimminies out of me! I think I aged about 10 years!
Time to go, the house calls and my knees are groaning, but, I gave my word to help and another few hours and we'll find more than enough to keep me busy researching for hours on end.
Have a great day today and thanks for stopping in to visit with me for those precious few moments you had to spend.
One of the secrets of life is to make stepping stones out of stumbling blocks. ~Jack Penn
TODAY Canadians are celebrating Victoria Day with a long weekend and fireworks tonight, and my neighbors in the United States are celebrating Memorial Day and for them it is also a long weekend which will also have fireworks, so HAPPY LONG WEEKEND to everyone on this side of the Atlantic!
I realize it has been a few weeks since I last posted, but honestly, I have been busy helping a friend who has bought the house of a collector turned hoarder! What a mess!!! THIS summer journey is going to be like going back in time...
By way of an explanation, do you recall that program on television which takes you into the houses of Hoarders???? WELL I have been helping with an estate property which is one of those houses...almost 70 years worth of collecting is in this house.
THANKFULLY while the food stuffs are very aged - there was no rotting food only the wee mice to contend with. There are only tiny pathways to this nightmarish maze. Everywhere you look you will see rocks of all sizes, dimensions, colors and textures lining the floors, windows sills, mantels, railings, hallways, even in the bathrooms.....there is no where to sit down because each chair or chesterfield is full of things, there is no surface space because each and every thing that can be called a surface is literally piled high to overflowing with things. The windows are sealed by old storm windows which need to be taken off and which I hope will happen tomorrow, once we clear a pathway to the windows or at the very least one window so that we can get fresh air into the house and not breath in the stale air of 50+ years.
This elderly person was not only a rock enthusiast, but a collector of anything and everything he decided could be classified as antiques, paintings, books, glassware, china, porcelain, clothing, shoes, handbags, silverware, you name it I bet you I can find it in that house or on this property. No matter where you look, no matter which building you are in (there are five buildings on this property) or on which part of the property you want to place your feet, you must literally look to where it is your placing them as the entire property is filled to its capacity, each building houses boxes, crates, piles of STUFF!!!!
Apparently this person and his spouses were collectors and his latest spouse was a hoarder. There isn't a wall that isn't plastered with paintings, posters, etchings, plaques and glass plates of all sizes and dimensions.
BESIDE the hoarding of the 8 years, there was the collecting over the past 50 years and combined it is quite the nightmare! The chaos of the hoarding coupled with the collections is very overwhelming.
There are boxes and boxes of Vintage everything, calendars, post cards, old pictures and jars of marbles, boxes of silver cutlery, childrens' stuffed toys, dolls and books, old and what he believed to be rare books, old 78 rpm records as well as vinyl records, cameras, moving picture apparatus as well as fittings for old time cinema movie projectors, old iron black kettles, old stone jugs and jars, old old tools used for carpentry and construction, maps, magazines, comic books, boxes of ladies hats, mens' hats, jewelry both good with precious stones and racks of costume jewelry too! I could go on and on, but really just repeating it all is giving me a headache.
For the items of any value whatsoever we decided to open a new shop on Etsy for anything Vintage and boy is there every a lot of Vintage! Not many items listed yet because it takes time to research, photograph and list each article, but, if your interested come and browse the shop!
I will be spending days, weeks possibly months researching, cataloging and photographing each and every piece all of it fun, but, time consuming and exhausting.
I am worn out from just sharing all of this with you... I found some old snap shots taken in the early 70's and there were quilts in those picture but I haven't found them yet but am keeping an eye open for sure. If I find them I will share with you.
Looks like the rest of this year is going to be exhausting...but I am going to keep smiling just the same so people will wonder what I have been up to!
I'll check in again in a day or two and share more of my exploratory house travels so if I have not bored or tuckered you out, come back and check up on me if for no other reason but to make sure I haven't become a missing person.
Instead of counting your days, make your days count. ~Author Unknown
I simply cannot believe it, another week has flown by and I haven't posted since last Sunday! The time really flies when your busy and not paying attention to the days of the week as they fly on past. Last week my Exchange Student went home. While he was here, his presence helped keep me tuned into what day it was, what time it was and the chores that come with having another being in the house with me. When he left, there was no reason to set the alarm for a certain time each morning, or to make certain a good supper was ready for him on time, nor making certain his school lunch bag was properly filled...nope, none of that needed to be paid attention to because he went back home to his Host Mother, who had a wonderful week at the Annual Quilt week in Paducah.
This week while though I have not been posting, I have been busy, first I changed the bed linens and washed the ones I took off, I gathered up as many of my sewing tools and notions and put those all away where they belonged and then set about creating and sewing more totes and cosmetic bags. I am crossing my fingers some of these if not all will be sold out over this coming summer at the weekend markets. I have stocked my Etsy Shop with the hopes that buyers out there might see something I have made and want it. Right now the many sellers who sell handmade fabric items are not selling like they did last year and the competition is fierce what with Etsy now allowing mass manufactured goods to be sold as well. This doesn't help those of us who make handmade goods for sale at all.
I decided that this year I would try my hand at selling at the weekend Farmers' Markets and a store in a town a half hours run from my home. One can but try, right?
I also have some charity quilts to finish up so the sooner I get those out and finished and delivered, the better off I will feel..
A dear friend went to Paducah last week and came home with pretty fabric gifts for me, she hasn't had time to share what all she saw whilst there, but, I will see her soon and get to experience Quilt Week second hand. I have already used some of the fabric in a tiny tote bag this week, isn't it cute for the size of it? I have been hatch quilting my fabrics over these past many months, but the other day I just felt lazy and so I used a stitch from my sewing machine and sewed controlled lines of it, as the picture shows, it didn't turn out too badly. Then I embroidered another stitch around the top of the bag, close up it looks great, far away, hmmmmm I am not to certain. What do you think?
Don't you just love being gifted with fabrics? I certainly do and when I get such gifts I walk around constantly thinking about what I might use them in.
Time for me to wish you a very Happy Weekend and thank you so very much for stopping by to visit, I certainly appreciate it. Any comments or opinions you might have are also welcomed.
If we all did the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves. ~Thomas Alva Edison
